Press Release

Developers can now create new skills and capabilities for Alexa, the
brain behind Amazon Echo

Developer preview starts today

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun. 25, 2015--
(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Alexa is the cloud-based voice service that powers Amazon
Echo, a new category of device designed around your voice. Today, Amazon
announced the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), a collection of self-service APIs
and tools that make it fast and easy for developers to create new
voice-driven capabilities for Alexa. With a few lines of code,
developers can easily integrate existing web services with Alexa or, in
just a few hours, they can build entirely new experiences designed
around voice. No experience with speech recognition or natural language
understanding is required—Amazon does all the work to hear, understand,
and process the customer’s spoken request so a developer doesn’t have
to. The Alexa Skills Kit is free—learn more and get started with the
preview at https://developer.amazon.com/ASK.

Examples of skills developers can create with the Alexa Skills Kit
include:

A hobbyist developer can enable Alexa to access his or her child’s
school lunch menu—then, each morning simply ask, “Alexa, ask Ballard
Elementary School what’s for lunch today” and decide whether to pack a
lunch for the child.

A device maker with an Internet-connected sprinkler system can
integrate its sprinklers with Alexa, so a customer can say, “Alexa,
ask my sprinkler to water my lawn for 15 minutes.”

A surf report provider can create a new skill for Alexa that lets
customers ask for the latest conditions at their favorite break by
saying “Alexa, ask Surf Status for my local forecast.”

The maker of a smart vacuum cleaner can create a skill for Alexa that
lets customers control their vacuum by saying “Alexa, tell the vacuum
to start cleaning the living room.”

A fitness service can enable Alexa to access a user’s workout history,
so a customer can say “Alexa, ask My Fitness how many miles I have run
this week.”

A baseball fantasy league can make a new skill for Alexa, so managers
can simply say, “Alexa, ask Fantasy Baseball to change my lineup and
start Felix Hernandez today.”

“When we launched Amazon Echo we immediately heard from developers about
the innovative voice experiences they would create if they had access to
an SDK,” said Greg Hart, Vice President, Amazon Echo and Alexa Voice
Services. “Today, we’re making the Alexa Skills Kit available to any
developer, maker, or general hobbyist that wants to invent on behalf of
customers, creating new skills and capabilities. We can’t wait to see
what developers are going to invent with this technology.”

Creating an Alexa skill is easy and fast. Developers simply write
cloud-hosted code that interacts with Alexa’s cloud-based APIs to
process customer requests. Alexa does the work to hear, understand, and
resolve the customer’s spoken request, and then maps the service call to
the developer’s endpoint.

The easiest way to build a skill for Alexa is to use AWS Lambda, an
innovative compute service that runs a developer’s code in response to
triggers and automatically manages the compute resources in the AWS
Cloud, so there is no need for a developer to provision or continuously
run servers. Developers simply upload the code for the new Alexa skill
they are creating, and AWS Lambda does the rest, executing the code in
response to Alexa voice interactions and automatically managing the
compute resources on the developer’s behalf.

Here are a few of the developers who are using the ASK to create new
skills for Alexa:

Pebblebee, a hardware company making customized Bluetooth trackers and
sensors, is using ASK to enable customers to track items and check
sensors using voice. “We've learned over the past few years that it’s
not always intuitive to use a visual app with so many features. Using
voice commands simplifies the complexity for customers,” said Daniel
Daoura, Co-Founder and CEO of Pebblebee. “We’re thrilled to use the
Alexa Skills Kit to integrate Alexa with Pebblebee’s sensor information,
so a customer can simply ask, ‘Alexa, find my keys,’ or ‘Alexa, how warm
is the baby’s room?’ or ‘Alexa, is my dog nearby?’”

Intuit, maker of financial software, is planning a reference
implementation using Alexa to access Mint.com, the free web-based
personal financial management service. “The Alexa Skills Kit allows us
to begin experimenting on our vision for voice user interfaces,” said
Wolf Paulus, Staff Software Engineer at Intuit. “Since Alexa is
cloud-based, as soon as a prompt is spoken, the service could respond
with the most up-to-date information, allowing us to quickly provide our
customers with updates that are useful to them, like ‘what is my account
balance’ or ‘how long until I reach my savings goal?’. We look forward
to experimenting with new ways for our customers to access their data.”

StubHub, an online marketplace for sports, concert, theater, and other
live entertainment event tickets is using Alexa to enable customers to
purchase tickets and more using voice. “At StubHub, we are constantly
thinking of ways to make the live event experience easier and more fun,”
said Parag Vaish, Head of Mobile at StubHub. “By bringing StubHub’s
great experience to Alexa, we’re able to reach more fans by allowing our
customers to use their voice to engage with our content to do things
like ask, ‘Alexa, ask StubHub what events are happening this weekend
near me?’ or ‘Alexa, ask StubHub to send event suggestions to me for
tomorrow.’”

Octoblu, Citrix's enterprise Internet of Things platform, is using ASK
for voice-activated automation of business tasks, like setting up
meetings on Citrix GoToMeeting. “The Alexa Skills Kit provides an ideal
solution for our enterprise automation solution, Octoblu,” said Chris
Matthieu, Director, IOT Engineering at Citrix. “By integrating Alexa’s
robust APIs, Octoblu can now facilitate a wide variety of
voice-activated automations, and the advanced, reliable voice technology
makes us confident end users will have a great experience. Using Alexa
with Octoblu, a customer can set up a GoToMeeting, without having to
stop what they’re doing—they can just tell their Echo to schedule it and
keep going.”

AOL, a global media technology company that curates content from brands
and web sites, is using ASK to enable customers to listen to AOL daily
headlines and articles. “Alexa enables readers to access content from
across our brands by simply using their voice,” said Drew Lesicko, Head
of Mobile Product at AOL. “Using Alexa, an avid reader could have Echo
read them their favorite headlines or articles from TechCrunch or news
of the day from any of our other AOL properties. This allows us to
continue to reach our audience, even if they are not in front of a
tablet or computer—an exciting prospect for AOL, and a great use case
for our customers.”

Glympse, a mobile service that provides a fast, free, and simple way to
share your location in real time with the people you trust from a
GPS-enabled mobile phone, is using ASK to enable customers to request
location details via voice. “We are always looking for innovative
solutions to expand our ecosystem, and Alexa’s cutting edge voice
technology was a natural fit,” said Steve Miller, Co-Founder and Chief
Technology Officer at Glympse. “Location information—the question of
‘where are you?’ or ‘when will you arrive?’—is pervasive in daily life.
We are excited to use the Alexa Skills Kit to make it even easier for
people to request location details by saying ‘where is Bob?’ or ‘when
will Jack get here?”

The first new capabilities built by developers using the ASK will launch
later this year. The free Alexa Skills Kit developer preview is
available starting today—get started at https://developer.amazon.com/ASK.

In addition, Amazon today announced that the Alexa Voice Service (AVS),
the same service that powers Amazon Echo, is now available to third
party hardware makers who want to integrate Alexa into their devices—for
free. For example, a Wi-Fi alarm clock maker can create an Alexa-enabled
clock radio, so a customer can talk to Alexa as they wake up, asking
“what’s the weather today?” or “what time is my first meeting?” Read the
press release: www.amazon.com/AVS.

About Amazon

Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is
guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor
focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and
long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized
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Publishing, Kindle, Fire phone, Fire tablets, Fire TV, and Amazon Echo
are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon.